


Just a Bit Better

by SpokenShepherd



Series: Fallout 4 - Tales of the Survivors [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Extended Metaphors, F/M, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, I can't choose, Spoilers, adopted family, maybe smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 02:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5317880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpokenShepherd/pseuds/SpokenShepherd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 200 years, and she only has one goal: make the world just a bit better; what Lee can't decide on is for who.</p><p>A collection of shorts for my Sole Survivor, Lee McClain, in no particular order. I'm very indecisive on who she should be with, so these shorts won't be linked unless otherwise noted in some very obvious way.</p><p>Update: Apparently I'm writing them in order. Who knew?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Astounded

    “To be fair, the car blowing up was an accident,” Lee offers the men a half smile, kicking at a still-smoking wheelhouse, “mostly.”  
    But the previous explosion isn't what has Hancock, MacCready, and Danse all staring at the woman as she considers the warped piece of metal her foot currently rests on.  
    One of them is rendered speechless because he can’t decide whether it’s the Jet or the dying fire that gives Lee the glow that seems to catch her short hair and turn the deep brown into a red mahogany, framing her against the blackened crater where the Fat Man had just taken its metallic victim; whatever it is, _damn_.  
    The next is completely lost in her half smile, same shade of maroon as the ghoul next to him, just fucking _this much_ on the side of amused to make him think that she has a wild streak, even if it is buried under a mountain of angelic. He had suspected her of smart-assery before though, like when she said "Nice rifle there, princess, but I betcha mine's bigger," before leveling her scope at a feral some ways down their makeshift range.  
    The third is dumbfounded by her power, her lithe figure that no, he doesn’t notice. He can’t. But perhaps he can appreciate how, with her hip cocked out and a hand braced on the curve, a goddess of war would be an appropriate metaphor, if such things still existed now. Maybe they do, with her standing there.  
    “Come on,” Lee slings her rifle across her back and starts off across the drive-in, all focus and determination once more, “fan out. Thinkin’ this might not be a bad place for a settlement.”  
    One by one, the men shake themselves, shooting sideways glances at one another that are equal parts suspicion and a silent agreement to stay quiet. Besides, Lee is right: the Starlight Drive-in would make a nice home.


	2. A Manner of Speaking, Pt.1

   There was a bet going around the Drive-in.

   Valentine was the pot-keeper until someone was discovered to have won, because they all assumed he was the most wrong. MacCready started it with a half-assed comment one night at supper when Lee wasn’t there. Hancock took him up on it, and the first twenty caps were laid down. Then, Piper threw in her guess, and ten more caps; Cait followed suit the next morning. Preston was so insistent he was right that they forced him to put his money where his mouth was. Curie denied participation, but insisted they informed her of the results for ‘scientific purposes’, and Danse was eventually roped into the betting when his trained judgement was called into question.

   Dogmeat, when prompted, barked.

   And so, the total pot climbed to 170 caps; a sizeable amount that they all are itching to get their hands on. For a week, the betters are content to wait patiently, so sure are they that their answer will come up in casual conversation as Lee lingers around to help fortify and furnish the Drive-in - only it doesn’t, and she’s leaving the next morning for Diamond City with Strong at her heels.

   “Hey, Boss, mind if I ask you something?”

   MacCready is the one who gives in to temptation.

   Lee looks up from her place by their cooking fire, where a radroach roasts on a spit over a bubbling pot of ‘stag stew. As casually as possible, Piper and Cait swivel towards the conversation on their bar stools, while Valentine and Curie stop their discussion abruptly; Danse and Preston set aside their rifles.

   “Go-” Lee blinks, her brow furrowing at all of them, then continues, slower this time, “Go ahead... I think.”

   MacCready dives right in: “Where are you from?”

   “Why?” She asks with a smile, but there’s a hesitation behind the word that leaves her room for adjustment, should she need it.

   “We have a bet going,” he explains, “because we can’t figure it out. Your accent is... well, it’s weird.”

   “I assume you mean you’ve never heard it?” She laughs, and they all give some sort of confirmation by way of nod or monosyllable. “That’s easy to explain. I was born down in the Gulf Commonwealth, which explains the occasional ‘g’ drop, but I joined the Marines after learning a second language, a few years before the war. Learned six more in my time as a translator, then a polyglot-specified lawyer, so...” Lee waves her hands, “that’s why I don’t sound southern all the time. Each language requires - _required_ its own accent to sound native, so I became a hodgepodge.”

   The fire crackles in the wake of her explanation, and Piper absently spins herself on the stool. “Wait, that makes it, what? Eight? You speak _eight_ languages?!”

   “ _Spoke_ ,” Lee promptly corrects her with a hushed tone. “I _spoke_ eight languages. Now, I’d be surprised if even three of them existed somewhere. Like in this area, there’s plenty of English, but no German. So, what does that mean? That not one German speaker got to a vault? Then again,” she bites her finger, staring into the fire. Her ruminations are almost mumbled now, she’s so lost in her thoughts. “It could make sense, what with all the civil strife...”

   They let her linger as their meal is distributed, and despite the unfamiliar ingredients, Lee turns out to be a half-decent cook. It’s into his second bowl when MacCready nonchalantly leans over to Valentine.

   “What?” the synth asks slowly.

   “I won.”

   “Nuh-uh,” Hancock says, “I do believe she said Gulf, brother, and you said Southeast.”

   “Oh, come on! The rest of you were up north!”

   “Give him the money, Nick,” Lee says, standing, stretching like a cat before she picks up her pipe pistol and makes her way to her sleeping bag at the top of the diner’s tower, where the projector would have been years and years ago. “Man’s damn close.”


	3. A Manner of Speaking, Pt.2

   Lee flings her legs out the window, finding purchase on the foot-wide ledge of detailing that runs around the thinnest part of the projection tower. A blanket follows her, and she sticks her arms out wide like gymnasts used to, traveling step by careful step to the front of the tower, facing the wooden and wilting movie screen. Dim lights burn behind the peeling edges of plywood, signaling Cait’s presence at the top, and Curie’s somewhere further down towards the middle.

  
   Settling in on the ledge with the scraggly woolen quilt she’d bothered to pull off her bed - the old one, her and Nate’s before the war - is no easy task, but Lee manages. She tilts her head back against the cool metal building, watching as Preston and Piper head off to their beds in the scrap metal shacks their party had erected over the course of the past week. Danse draws first watch like he does on most nights and stations himself at the front gate. She can’t see Hancock from her perch; maybe he found some quiet place to take his final hits of jet before passing out.

  
   Safe and sound, for now at least. Her eyes fall to MacCready, who hasn’t moved from his introspective stance by the dying fire, and her thoughts soon follow, winding towards his sudden question.

  
   Her companions had a bet about her. Surely she isn’t so mysterious as to warrant a bet, hm? True, there had never been much discussion about Lee’s past in the four months since she’d emerged from Vault 111, but the lack is warranted in her eyes: she’s been busy, consistently on the move, finding herself pulled into the wasteland of the Commonwealth head first. Strange things exist now - machines that look like humans, could be human for all she knows; factions like the Brotherhood of Steel, the Minutemen, the Railroad, and...

  
   Lee thumps her head against the cool exterior of the tower. She doesn't want to think about them. The very idea of them makes her lose her temper, and she refuses to do so; not until she finds them.

  
   But the bet... Christ, it shouldn't matter where she’s from, and not in a “leave my past alone or I'll go deathclaw on your ass” kind of way; it’s more of a “we’re all here now, so why does it matter?”. They’re all just survivors trying to do exactly that: survive.

  
   Deep down, Lee knows she’s wrong. She sees her error in the way Preston looks to her for orders, hears it when MacCready calls her ‘Boss’, and finds it in a desperate settler’s voice because they were told she was someone they could turn to. Lee has managed to make herself important in this forsaken wasteland, when in reality she’s just herself. Just Lee McClain.  
   God help her the day they realize that.

  
   When she looks back down on the Drive-in, MacCready is gone, his duster slung over the back of a lawn chair. Lee closes her eyes and listens; gentle footsteps on the stairs far below, growing more purposeful as they reach the top so as to announce his presence.

  
    Lee glances up, and MacCready is looking back at her, leaning on the sill of a cracked window directly above. His hat shades his eyes.

  
   “Hey Boss,” he nods, and she winces at her mistake.

  
   “Hey yourself,” Lee smiles, “care to come on out?”

  
   “Yeah, right...” MacCready glances at the ground, “‘cause I just love heights.”

  
   “In that case, you’re not invited anymore.”

  
   “No complaints here,” he says, and then they both turn out to watch as the moon crests over the edge of the drive-in screen. The lights within are extinguished by now, and with the obstruction removed, the sky behind the screen ignites.

  
   Lee had seen stars before the Great War, but frankly she never expected to see them again after surfacing from the vault - despite the passage of time, surely nuclear fallout wouldn't rend the sky that clear. Her first night though, spent on a decrepit couch in Sanctuary and listening to the gentle whir of Codsworth from the other room, gave her a shock. Through the caved in roof, beyond the construction beams and limp shingles, she saw billions of cosmic lights, more than she could have ever fathomed 200 years ago, let alone see. They stretched from horizon to horizon, and stayed even while she blinked and shook her head in disbelief, trying to relieve herself of what must be an illusion.

  
   In that instant, Lee had suddenly felt very small, acutely human, and she thought those two feelings were lost on her forever, much like the stars.

  
   “So, why come up here?”

  
   Lee starts, glancing up at MacCready once again. Does he mean.... “What?”

  
   “Up here,” his hand pats the window sill. “Plenty of beds downstairs.”

  
   “Oh,” she breathes a sigh of relief, “I don't know. Best sight lines, I suppose.”

  
   “Danse has first watch tonight,” MacCready says, pointing to the power armor by the front gate that just so happens to contain a man as well.

  
   “I noticed.”

  
   “It'll take at least a deathclaw to bring him down.”

  
   Lee tilts a grin towards MacCready. She’ll go to bed when MacCready straight up tells her to; until then... “But where’ll I get my target practice, Princess?”

  
   He laughs, really laughs as if what she said is honest-to-God funny and he isn't just humoring her sass. “If your shooting gets any more sharp, Boss, we’re all in trouble. Can only think of one person with a better shot.”

  
   “Oh?” she feigns ignorance, “And who might that be?”

  
   “Why, yours truly, of course!”

  
   “One of these days,” Lee stretches, arching her arms overhead, “we’re gonna have to pony up and test these claims of ours.”

  
   “Moving target or stationary?”

  
   The serious note in MacCready’s voice makes her blink up at him. The mercenary considers sharpshooting a religion, she knows, but Lee never thought she would have what little exists of MacCready’s professionalism turned towards her.

  
   “Moving,” she decides, “ferals.”

  
   “Concord’s full of ‘em. Decent perches, too.”

  
   “Rifles?”

  
   “Silenced .38, passed back and forth.”

  
   “Long range scope.”

  
   “Fair enough.”

  
   “After I get back from Diamond City, we’ll cut out some time,” Lee assures MacCready, nudging his hat with the tip of her fingers. He grins, situates his hat back where he prefers it, then claps her on the shoulder, turning away from the window.

  
   “Night, Boss!”

  
   Lee pulls her knees to her chest, resting her temple against them. She’s still not tired. “G’night, Princess.”


	4. Swing

“Not how baseball was played.”

Lee can feel Danse looking at her, silent in case she decides to continue the thought. He’ll listen, she knows, but there’s still a bit of guilt hanging around the pit of her stomach from when she abruptly switched Strong out with him as her traveling companion; the Paladin had first watch the previous night, and she worries that three hours of sleep and an entire day of travel might be too much on him.

So, Lee quits glaring at Swatters and its owner, instead sliding off her stool at the noodle bar.

“How about a room tonight, hm? The Bobrov’s owe me a favor or four,” Lee says, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. It had been a while since she had cashed in on one of her good deeds for the foreign owners of the Dugout Inn, and Danse deserves a little rest in an actual bed, where they won't have to worry about watches or raiders.

“I wouldn't say no to a bed, ma'am,” Danse concedes, following Lee down the dusty street to the inn. Absently, she fiddles with the band of gold around her left finger. Years ago, she had dreamed about taking Shaun down here one day to meet the baseball players, maybe get something signed; he could have joined his own team, even. Now-

“A question if I may, Danse,” Lee asks him ten minutes later, after she has procured a room for them from the Bobrov’s. 

“What is it, paladin?”

“It's that right there,” and before her hand turns the key in the lock, she swivels and leans back against the door, arms crossed, an open gaze focused on Danse. “I have a name, you know.”

Lee isn’t upset. She’s well aware that Danse’s very nature tends towards titles and formalities, but they’ve been traveling together - fighting together - long enough now that a first-name basis should at least natural for them, if not their default.

“If there’s an issue, soldier, I’d prefer that you were straightforward.”

¨No issue, I’m just interested in you usin’ my name on occasion, sir.”

The look she fixes him with isn’t irritated, or forceful, or even particularly persuasive - all of which are expressions she can in fact don; no, this one is open, pure and simple. No pressure, no demands, just a request. It’s moments like these Danse can understand how she rose through the Brotherhood’s ranks so quickly, despite her loose adherence to their morals.

Now, what she’s asking for - he’d never considered it. Not just with her, but with anyone. Lee might be his equal, but they’re comrades, soldiers on the same mission, brother and sister in arms; that warranted a level of respect and trust perhaps, but more and they would become... what? Friends? 

He’s an adult, he can leave their relationship at that, surely.

Danse finally gives her a curt nod. “I can consider it, McClain.”

And she laughs, a smile pulling the corners of her mouth up towards crinkled eyes. Lee kicks the door open to their room, practically skipping her way inside. Gold glints at him from her hand, and Danse averts his eyes to avoid being being blinded by her light.

_ 'Friends...' _ He runs the word through his head again as Lee claims one of the two beds. ' _ Just friends.' _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moe Cronin needs to be hit with his own swatter.


	5. Trigger Rhythm

_ I see the moon... _

“I win.”

“Do not.”

MacCready scoffs, “Come on, the glowing fu- thing was like, what, twelve points?”

“We weren’t on a points system,” Lee says. “We were going by body count, and in that regard we tied after running out of targets.”

They hadn’t originally planned to clear out Wildwood Cemetery. Thanks to a general understanding throughout the Commonwealth, it was a “Don’t go there” zone, with even the supermutants steering clear of it for one good reason: the cemetery was absolutely  _ infested _ with ghouls and radiation.

Lee and MacCready were on their way to Concord to thin out the ghoul population there with a sharpshooting contest when Dogmeat ran off from the Drive-in. Assuming it would only be a small detour, they decided to follow the mutt, but what drew him so suddenly to the cemetery was anyone's guess.

_ And the moon sees me... _

In the end, Wildwood Cemetery still had plenty of ghouls for their contest.  _ Had _ , because it no longer  _ has _ any.

“Had we not run out of targets-”

“I still have a loaded weapon and first watch, Princess,” Lee threatens through a smile, and the latter does more to shut MacCready up than the former.

They settle into what can only be the former Groundskeeper’s house, still surprisingly sturdy after such a horrendous occupation. Upstairs is where they set up for the night, the night sky as their roof and blown out windows letting in a gentle breeze. Dogmeat curls up next to Lee, his tail folded over her legs.

“Do y’all still know the asterisms and constellations?” Lee asks after a round of silence, in between cleaning their rifles and sleep. She had been staring at the stars for a while now, fidgeting with the pair of gold rings she wears on one finger, relishing in feeling so small and human.

MacCready gives her a sideways glance, but shakes his head. “I’m sure someone does, although I don’t know ‘em. You?”

“No,” Lee rolls onto her side to face MacCready where he sits up against the far wall. “Moon looks pretty tonight. I’m surprised the radiation didn’t give birth to Werewolves or something.”

“I think Hell was feeling generous and just stopped at Deathclaws. But yeah, the full moon is nice.”

_ And the moon sees the somebody I’d like to see _ .

“What about nursery rhymes? Still have those?”

He tells her yes, they do, and he asks why.

“I’ve been thinkin’ of one, and I can’t remember the end of it for the life of me.”

“Let me give it a shot,” MacCready offers.

In her gentle voice, so soft he has to lean closer to hear, Lee whispers the rolling rhyme that had been her natural rhythm as she picked off ghouls one by one only an hour before the moon crested the horizon.

“Yeah, I think I know that,” MacCready nods, “Lucy used to sing it. How’d it go?  _ So God bless the moon, and God bless me, and God bless the somebody I’d like to see _ .”

He doesn’t ask why she thought of the rhyme, or who the somebody she’d like to see is, much like she doesn’t ask who Lucy is, or who she was to him. Instead they sit there, content that between the two of them they knew a whole nursery rhyme despite a span of 200 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year.


	6. Cold

“It’s cold,” Lee growls from her spot by the fire.

She’s right - it is indeed cold. That doesn’t mean any of them want to hear it though, Hancock least of all. No hair on an inch of his body means the chilly air slips deeper into his bones than it would with any smooth skin. Not that he'll ever admit it, but he shakes just the same.

Across the fire, Lee curls in on herself, slender fingers extended out towards the flame of their cooking fire. Soon as dinner’s done, what few of them remain will probably disperse pretty quickly. Valentine doesn’t seem to be bothered much, and Piper hasn’t said a word about anything other than her damn newspaper for over an hour; MacCready’s fidgeting with his duster glancing at Lee -  _ aw, he gonna give it to her? Cute. Go on, be chivalrous. The doll deserves it. _

But his silent encouragement of MacCready leads Hancock to miss the paladin walking up to the fire, out of his power armor for once and a blanket in hand. Danse sits down on the bench next to Lee, offering her the blanket. 

When Hancock does notice, he nearly doubles over in shock, but manages to pass it off as a particularly violent shiver. Now, he doesn’t miss the long look Lee gives the blanket, then the hand holding it. She’s weighing her options like the smart girl she is, because a caring gesture from the paladin - even one as simple as a blanket - means something whether he knows it or not.

In the breath that Lee takes to consider the offer, MacCready notices too, and stops fidgeting with his duster, pulling his hat down over his eyes.  _ Come on brother, no pouting. You took too damn long. _

If Hancock had to choose, he would prefer to silently endorse the merc rather than the Brotherhood cheerleader. Danse always puts a situation on edge, and has a habit of dwarfing people both physically and verbally in a way that Hancock never could warm up to; MacCready has his flaws, sure, but at least he doesn’t prance around in power armor all day. 

Then again, this is none of his business - Lee can make her own choices.

Doesn’t mean the choices won’t surprise Hancock though, because those slender fingers once stretched towards the fire slowly reach out and take the blanket, pulling it around her shoulders and somehow sliding  _ that much _ closer to Danse.

“Thank-you,” she says, although she hasn’t chanced a look at Danse since he sat down.

“Anytime, McClain,” he returns, and that’s it. The night falls back into a normal rhythm of Piper telling a story, the fire crackling each time a drop of fat drips from the spit into the flames, and Lee eventually turning a warm smile to the conversation at hand.

Hancock isn’t the first to turn in from the cold; MacCready beats him to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one from the south likes being cold.


	7. Izar

“I’m gonna keep it.”

“You can’t keep it,” Valentine pinches the bridge of his nose, “you already have a dog.”

“Dogmeat needs a friend.”

“Dogmeat’s not gonna like it. Look how small it is! Can’t be more than a few weeks old.”

“I'll feed him- wait,” Lee frowns, flipping over the kitten to look at its white tummy. “Her, actually; she's a girl.”

“Doll,” Nick sighs, crouching in front of her like a father about to break the hard truth of life to a child, “it was taken from it’s mother in this wasteland. Hasn’t made a noise since I’ve been here, and probably has radiation sickness in its frail little bones and won’t last-”

“Well it won’t if you keep talking like that,” Lee scolds, frowning and reaching behind her. She fumbles for a moment, keeping the kitten curled close to her, until she grunts, stretches, and retrieves an eye dropper and small bowl of-

“ _ What _ is that?” Valentine asks, sighing in defeat and joining Lee on the steps to her shack.

“Back in the day, 200 years ago, when I took care of strays-”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“-you could nurse the kittens back to health with a mix of milk, eggs, and the tiniest bit of corn syrup.” Lee dips the dropper into her mixture and offers it to the mewing kitten. “This isn’t that, but it’s close enough. Brahmin milk and egg.”

Nick blinks at her, then down to where the kitten sucks on the end of the eye dropper. “And you really think that’ll work?”

“It doesn’t hurt to try, Valentine.”

The synth watches Lee, giving her a long moment of consideration. He hadn’t planned on spending his evening on her step, watching her sweet little metaphorical halo glow brighter over her head, but that’s where he found himself, and he supposes he really can’t blame her. She’s right: doesn’t hurt to try.

“Here,” he flicks and unfolds a kerchief from his pocket, jostling the kitten as little as possible as he wraps it up loosely. “Thinking about naming it?”

“I have no clue what to name her. Catmeat?”

“You aren’t serious.”

“Of course I’m not,” Lee says, refilling the eye dropper. “What about...Izar?”

“What?”

“It’s a star,” she explains, “and she looks like an Izar, don’t you think?”

“It’s your cat,” Nick says, “name it after a star if you want. I was thinking, ‘Refugee 8” would be better, seeing as you save damn near everything you trip over. Don’t you have any other hobbies?”

Lee laughs, slowly shaking her head. “Not any more.”

“Well, what’d you used to do?” Nick is pushing, and usually he wouldn’t on the topic of her past, but this seems safe enough. “Something had to keep you from going crazy.”

“No,” she frowns, but her brow furrows in thought, “not much. I was pretty focused on my job. Learning norwegian took most of my time just before the bombs dropped, not to mention Shaun and...”

Her face turns contemplative and Nick leans forward - contemplative is about as defenseless as Lee gets. “Doll...”

Lee twists her hair from her face, then refills the eyedropper. “It’s fine. You just got me thinkin’ that Nate kept me from going crazy more than I realized. He was an anchor for me. Made me feel like me, like a person, like... like I could be small, even when I had to be large and in charge in the courtroom.”

She had opened up just like that, staring down at the kitten in her lap wrapped in his kerchief and Nick nearly feels something in his wiring short circuit; just because he had prodded didn’t mean she had to say anything.

“I can’t imagine what that’s like, McClain,” he finally says, but it’s too late; she’s already put a smile back on her face, completely dismissing his sympathy with a gentle laugh.

“It’s fine, I’ve got other anchors these days,” Lee’s gaze flickers up, taking in the twinkling stars, then down as she wraps the kitten tighter in the kerchief, the tips of her fingers glancing over the rings on her hand absently. “I’ve survived so far, saving everything I trip over,” and she grins at him, tucking Izar into the pocket of her coat, “isn’t that right, Nick?”

“Hey now, you didn’t trip over me,” he insists, rising with her from the steps of her shack. She hops up the last stair and pauses in her threshold at his words.

Lee smiles back at him, her hand tightening on the door handle. “Dogmeat, in.”

The german shepard crawls out from under the steps where Nick hadn’t seen him, sniffs the detective, then trots up the stairs to nuzzle the silent kitten in investigation. It opens its eyes, but still makes no sound.

“Goodnight, Nick.”

“Night, doll,” Nick says, watching Lee disappear with her circus into her dim shack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This. Sodding. Chapter. *sighs*


	8. The First Half

The thing about steamer trunks is that they’re heavy; Lee doesn’t know why she’s surprised. But surely they shouldn’t be this heavy, even after having their contents emptied onto the floor of Home Plate.

Again, even amongst the strain of trying to push the trunk up the stairs to the loft, Lee chuckles at the name: Home Plate. Because it’s a home, and it’s where home plate would have been in the stadium. Damn, that’s funny to no one but her, surely.

“McClain?” Danse’s voice echos through the house, and Lee takes a moment to brace her feet against a midway stair, pressing her head against the cool metal edge of the steamer trunk in momentary defeat. Oh, she’s still going to get this thing upstairs; Lee just wanted to do it on her own while she had the chance.

“Two seconds, Danse,” she grunts, heaving upwards. The trunk jumps up another step with a heavy ‘clunk’.

His power armor whirs in his approach, and the paladin is soon standing at the edge of the staircase, eye level with Lee’s stretched out, braced body.

“Hi,” she says, a forced grin stretching her strained features.

He blinks. “Need some help there, soldier?”

“No, sir-woah,” she shakes her head, stumbling when the steamer trunk fidgets an inch and wobbles precariously, “Just-just need some time.”

“Alternatively,” Danse grabs on to the steamer trunk, heaving it off the stairs and over his head, using the power armor’s height to lift it into the loft.  
And she watches as metal creaks, and the tendons in his neck strain, and as his physical form dwarfs her despite their equal height with the aid of the stairs. For a moment, Lee tilts her conscious just enough to recognize how small Danse makes her feel.  
But then, when her thoughts right themselves again, Lee’s ass connects with the fifth stair from the bottom unceremoniously, her brace stolen from her. “I had it, but thank-you, Danse.”

“You only need ask, McClain,” he assures her, crossing his arms as they remain eye level. She risks a glance over, and blinks.

Blinks again. He’s close, - like, properly close, and they're face-to-face so suddenly that she finds the equality startling, unnerving, and unacceptable. Lee no longer feels small, dwarfed, and her insides rattle at the sensation.

She swings her legs over the staircase and jumps down, now at a safe face-to-metal-chest height with Danse. She breathes out, her breath fogging the polished steel of his power armor. Lee feels small again.

“Paladin?” Angling her head straight up, Lee watches Danse, wondering if he feels as tall as she feels small.

“Yes, soldier?”

“What are the Brotherhood’s fraternization regs like?” It’s a risk, but a risk she'll gladly take to feel just half of what she feels when the sky goes dark. In this world, she'll settle.

“Strict,” he answers deadpan, not quite a ‘no’, but not ‘yes’ either; Danse is calculating, just as she had. But now he has to decide if the risk is worth it, and Lee won't push until he does. “McClain...”

God, she can see it - see how close he is, how their months of traveling are rushing over him in one weak moment. Lee never missed the glances Danse pretended not to give, but there was something about the Paladin that kept her at bay; until now, that is, when she finally puts her finger on the pulse point and willingly shrinks under the presence of half a daytime star.

“McClain...” again, as a slow warning. She follows his gaze to her hand, where the two gold bands encircle her finger, and her heart wilts.

Lee won't take them off, can’t. They’re her anchor to Nate, even though Nate’s not here, leaving her with only the stars as she searches for their son. But God, she's desperate - so desperate for just half of what the night sky can give her, or what Nate used to.

A slender, shaking hand slides the top band off her finger, pocketing the relic as she tries to ignore the anxiety in her chest, like she had removed the whole digit rather than some unassuming bauble. The skin of her finger is pale, the sun having tanned all but the patch that his ring concealed.

“Please,” she says, a soft smile on her lips, as if extending an offering to Danse; no one needs to know what a plea it really is, “tell me ‘no’”.

“No,” Danse mutters, barely a growl hissed through clenched teeth, and for a moment her heart soars - he said ‘no’! as she slips one finger tip into her pocket to touch the ring - until the palladian reaches down with metallic hands and lifts her by her waist.

Oh...  
But she asked for it, and the part of her that shook for the ring now withdraws, not necessarily wrong, but rather understanding when a tactical retreat is needed.

His lips are rough, dry, metallic and sweet; he holds her, crushes her to him like the tiny thing she is, and she melts into it, relishing in how small she feels despite the early time of day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God bless extended metaphors.


	9. 'Hun'

“McClain, you got a minute?”

  
MacCready ignores the voice of the paladin, focusing further down range; a stray ghoul had wandered past the Drive-In, and since Lee didn’t have her rifle on her, the honor was all his. His stomach pressed to the roof of the diner, he takes in a deep breath, drowning out the irritating rumble of Danse, or the shuffling of Piper and Nick next to him.

  
Lee glances down at them over the edge, but keeps her attention on MacCready. “Yeah,” she says absently, “just give me a second, hun.”

  
MacCready’s shot strays - wildly. It bounces off a tree to the left of the ghoul, and it’s pure luck that guides the second shot home.

  
Hun. She had called Danse ‘hun’. Like the affectionate term. Meaning she- 'No. No way in hell.' MacCready barely tilts his head from his scope, and it must be providence that has her left hand reach down to help him up.

  
One less gold band encircles her finger.

“Holy crap.”

Lee snaps her head up, asses the situation, then promptly laughs. “Holy-somethin’ is right, Princess! You missed.”

He has to look away from her hand; MacCready pops the cartridge out of his rifle and absently begins disassembling it. “Yeah, right. Guess I was distracted.”

That puts Lee’s full attention on him. She asks in a softer voice, “Is everything alright?”

'Don’t look at her. Do not _fu-freaking_ look at her. Look at her, and you’re doomed.'

He glances up to those green-blue eyes. That’s it; he’s done for. “Everything’s fine, Lee,” he answers, giving her a half-smile.

She still searches his expression for a heartbeat, before returning his smile and nodding. Then, she’s gone, into the diner and down the stairs. MacCready tugs off his cap and runs a hand through the messy hair.

Who knows? Maybe the Paladin really does make her happy. Maybe MacCready is blowing things out of proportion, and ‘hun’ doesn’t mean a damn thing. But then why would she take off the ring? Because of Danse?

That irks him more than anything. If Lee and Danse are in fact together, he can handle that - he has no claim to her. She’s his boss, afterall. He’s sticking around for some caps, and that’s it.

But if she took off her dead husband’s wedding ring because of Danse - because the paladin couldn’t stand the sight of it? If she changed her habits for Danse, then there might be a minor issue. Lee deserved to be Lee whenever she could; enough of her time was already spent bending over backwards for people.

“Hey, MacCready,” Piper calls up to him, and he realizes he’s still standing on the roof, his rifle hooked over one shoulder and hat hanging limply in his hand, “wanna go see what that ghoul had on it?”

“Besides a bullseye?” MacCready grins, turning his back to Lee and Danse as they wander off across the Drive-In towards the raised garage they had constructed last week, over by the gardens and Lee’s shack.

“Come on, jackass,” she says, “let’s get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what's happening anymore. Need to take a step back and figure out how I'm gonna get to where this is going. *sigh*


End file.
